Abstract
Not much empirical evidence has been presented to evaluate the usefulness of user studies or the optimal amount of resources to allocate to them. This study is an initial step towards understanding the costs and benefits of user studies in the early stages of product development. In a case study, a psychologist, rather than a designer, performed a user study and developed design propositions. The results were compared with a baseline design process with usabilitytests.The results show that the user study was useful although the investment of 46 person hours was modest. The design propositions based on the user study results made the product more usable and desirable for the users.
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© 2000 Springer-Verlag London
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Kujala, S., Mäntylä, M. (2000). How Effective Are User Studies?. In: McDonald, S., Waern, Y., Cockton, G. (eds) People and Computers XIV — Usability or Else!. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0515-2_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0515-2_5
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-85233-318-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-0515-2
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